/lit/ - Literature

>>15336

Cheers for the recs. Very much my line of thinking – Meditations was a great read and definitely something to share with my kids as they come of age.

The Prince has been on my reading list for too long, ditto so many of the classics, and it’s a good motivation to think of what my kids can learn from them as well as myself if I take my reading list more seriously.

I've been looking for more tips for the best impartial, non-revisionist history. I got ahold of a set of Encyclopedia Britannicas exactly because they’re pre-60s and, apart from there being something lovely about old encyclopedias of themselves, I do enjoy having a reference point for old knowledge that isn’t edited with the influence of modern ideology. I look forward to getting them out when my kids are old enough to ask “What is…?” and hopefully when they’re older they can spot the difference when looking at Wikipedia.

My own introduction to economic history has been an odd course and I could definitely use some suggestions of good books that outline the core concepts without oversimplifying.

I’m interested in all the building blocks of an insightful worldview, so recommendations across all those areas are great. I'm always open to philosophical suggestions, but especially if the writing style isn't overcomplicated — call me a pleb, but I don’t think good philosophical thinking needs to be overly ambiguous or obscure. Save that for the sophists.

The other thing I had in mind was, since this is an exercise for the future, my first child still being in the womb (and like I said, this is a kick in the pants for my reading habits), books that are geared for or at least suitable for younger minds and reading levels. I didn’t read a lot of stuff like Gulliver’s Travels etc. myself and wonder what people who have would suggest.

>>15336

> Marcus Aurelius's Meditations

>bro like just be chaste and moral and accept living in abject poverty even though i am the literal emperor

get fucked

>>15336

>Paul F. Kennedy's 'The Rise and Fall of Great Powers,' and to a lesser extent his works regarding naval power, are fantastic books to get started with geopolitics. They are well-researched, the author focuses on an impartial (completely untainted by identity politics) analysis of the material capabilities of great powers & their dominance or decline, starting from the Hapsburgs and ending with musings on US power in a multipolar world. Most importantly, each chapter offers enough depth for you to springboard into more serious analyses of certain time periods or nations - so you can better understand why Britain dominated the world one day and collapsed in the next, why Nazi Germany opted for war against the USSR instead of keeping a stalemate, why the US continues to intervene in the affairs of foreign nations at great cost to itself.

I have to look this one up

>>15389

My own introduction to economic history has been an odd course and I could definitely use some suggestions of good books that outline the core concepts without oversimplifying.

depends on what you're looking for. will check back later….there's many different economic concepts.

>>15404

It's the quintessential delusion of the modern disaffected white male.

>>15409

I swear to Christ who do /lit/, /his/, and /philosophy/ keep getting shitposts like these not even fucking /leftypol/ has them. Get the fuck out of 8chan or better yet get the fuck out of the internet in general.

>got

>>>/reddit/

>urantia

God-tier, anon.

>Windows

>>15377

Hey faggot, he's clearly using Arch with a Windows skin

>>15390

That's even worse. Like sucking dick while straight.

>>15366

Book title: The Alchemist Paulo Coelho

>>13628

Most Jews barely practice Judaism as a religion. It's much more of an ethnic identity (no matter how little Israelite blood they have). Hence the term secular Jew.

>>12684

I do similar things when I'm angry at someone or something and I think I understand him. Let me try to explain why. You know we all act differently when we're angry, right? We try to find ways to cope with the anger. Well, for some people, the coping mechanism is to demonstrate to the world and all its people just how ridiculously annoying the person you're angry at is. And that can be done by impersonating what that person stands for in an exaggerating way. It's like mocking, but the difference is you normally mock people because they are inferior, laughable, pitiful, and you do that in a humorous way, while, in these cases, you mock people because you're furiously angry at them. It's not the kind of mocking you and your friends laugh at, it's the kind of mocking that makes everyone in the room go silent and look at you with slightly scared eyes and feelings of regret behind them.

>>13630

Lmao, what a bitter incel.

>>13673

are you jewish?

>>11568

thanks for the recs comrade

Pre-derp? What was mentioned, plus

all the Silver Age folk, including Gumilev and Averchenko.

Post-derp?

Lukin (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?178368) sadly few translations, and mostly German

Frei (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?237554) - at least some books are translated.

less "loud" tier, but good:

Gevorkyan (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?181477) - alas, the best isn't on the list.

Mikhailov (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?92761) - ditto

>>11546

And yes, Pelevin. Oh, here's a freebie on English:

http://pelevin.nov.ru/rass/en-zigm/1.html

His "must read" book is Generation P / Babylon.

>>12644

It's unlearnable. If you are an adult, It's too late.

Don't try.

>>15333

Ignore this retard.

>>12644

Reading and speaking a language are two very different animals, but one day you will want to speak, so it is very important to start now. Apps like HelloTalk allow you to do a language exchange. You teach your native language to someone who wishes to learn and they teach you Russian. If you really connect with someone, it's a great motivator, so don't give up if the first few conversations go nowhere. A paid Russian teacher is better but not always possible.

I like Benny the Irish Polyglot's blog for tips on learning languages. The most important thing by far is a little every day. 1% better each day makes you *3700%* better at the end of the year.

Just getting back into writing for the first time since I dropped everything for my chosen career, and really enjoying it now I'm at home preparing to squeeze out a baby.

Actually was wondering if this is a place to bring up an idea for a YA novel and see what people think; I like the idea of releasing for free the first installment of a would-be drama series that'd gently introduce teens to an increasingly dissident worldview as the main character grows up. Plot based around a high school girl who gets a development deal with a record company (Lorde-style), exploring her premature entry into an adult world, and slowly introducing (among other things) shit like predatory male feminists, professional victims in entertainment criticism/journalism, the anti-intellectual nonsense in modern humanities departments, etc. etc.

Besides that, I've got a lot of my own coming-of-age experiences to draw on now I'm old enough to reflect, and I like the idea of writing the kind of stuff I wish I'd come across as a lost teenager.

Wonder if it'd get any traction in online circles, as the kind of thing that wouldn't see the light of day in mainstream publishing?

Tend to think the problem with growing dissident political movements is that we have so little cultural output in spite of a growing audience for it and an urgent need for it.

>>15318

You should have her enter the glittery world of music production, but slowly realize there is an underworld of sex trafficking that leads her on a wild chase of pizza parlors in the flight for her life as she ends up bringing down an old order alien species that has evolved to look human, but secretly controls the world with big noses.

>>15316

there's literally a writefag thread three threads over, why make this?

>>15319

Interested to hear your definition of 'should'.

What exactly did you like about it?

>>15327

He explains what it means for literature to genuinely explore themes by testing moral/ethical hypotheses, so that a book can have real moral meaning without the author sperging out on a blatant rant. Frustrating that people see the title and assume he’s advocating for Goofus-and-Gallant preaching; I think he’d agree that that’s the problem with morally childish/incoherent award-bait lhat’s now called ‘socially important’ (The Handmaid’s Tale etc.), when compared to texts that are complexly constructed to explore truth rather than present a predetermined morality play. I'd never heard this fully articulated before, although I felt the same intuitively.

He argues that an author must have the moral/intellectual humility to embrace being proven wrong, and commit to ruthlessly honesty, rather than merely seeking to prove himself right. This is a larger point about what it means to be intellectual/scientific/philosophical that applies to so much in life.

Gardner repeats his core thesis a bit and I would suggest skimming towards the end if it feels like you’ve heard everything he has to say. Still, there are also excellent use of examples of what he’s talking about, especially when discussing thematically vacuous but popular/critically acclaimed trash, and comparing it to the best of literature.

What’s most inspiring to me as someone who wants to write, and not just read, is he shows it’s remarkably simple to uncover real human truth if your sincere goal is to be true-to-life (rather than true-to-preexisting-belief-system) even and especially when following contrived scenarios to their (socially) logical conclusions. And yet it’s clear how this is increasingly rare thanks to pretty blatant conceptual regimentation by our self-appointed cultural gatekeepers (plus readers/writers have less and less literary appreciation/ambition, likely as a result).

It’s a welcome antidote to the morally relativistic and nihilistic streaks in modern culture, especially that most obnoxious strain which preaches intractable relativism while simultaneously declarinPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

You are a redditor.

>>15323

You forgot your image file, fren.

>>15310

>I think the standards of it, like rhyme schemes and couplets and sonnets are retarded and antiquated

Well, congratulations for being an untermensch. I suggest listening to some of Elizabethan writers' and Shakespeare's works, particularly his poems to get a grasp at the power of antiquated poetry.

>that all the good poetry is already written or will be written by better men than me anyways.

Don't let your memes be dreams. See if you believe that, then you'll never write anything worthwhile. Be like Kierkegaard, or Hitler; the former believed that he was going to do great shit and passed out on a girl whom he loved. Hitler was a impractical dreamer in his youth, as Kubizek attests.

> As for journalism, I know nobody interesting, and likely never will, and most journalism is, nevermind, 100% of journalism is written by cuckolds or moral relatavists. It seems like the ONLY worthwhile writing is HIT PIECES

Then go with satirical works; read some satires to get a feel of how to do it; hell, read some of Wyndham Lewis as he took other people's works and melted it down and reworked it to his tastes.

Is it really writers block if you haven't actually started?

I use goodreads so I can showoff my high iq books that I read to my peers.

I do use but really it provides no real value to me other than my ingrained engineering behavior to spreadsheet/catalog everything I can. I like the ability for a starred rating system. I do this to music/albums I listen to and it is nice to shuffle music based on five stars, obviously doesn't apply here..

Maybe I need to stop using goodreads.

who?

>>15168

Tried building some personas on there but I don't care what people think and venting my opinion on things is boring. #SEO bullshit

I stopped using it when some insane harpies started stalking me because they thought I was the author of Behead all satans.

>>15168

>and it wouldnt let me just add books without reviewing them

You know you can just not fill the review section out, right?

>>15200

/thread

>>15202

You could print out pages.

>>15219

or you can buy a book

>>15196

This is very concerning. I'm not even a heavy bookfag, and I can tell you that both posters have no comprehension of higher concepts in total. A book can contain a large picture of information that extends a deep understanding of the writer's mind. This cannot happen with snippets of facts. They look at knowledge as a bunch of puzzle pieces. Ignoring the large painting as the author's whole concept. Sometimes it's not the pieces, it's the totality.

I assume they are talking about non-fiction school-related textbooks? Because what they're saying is true. There is no reason to own a book these days. I coasted through college by using the internet. I only bought a book in the first year because I was nescient and thought I needed it.

HOWEVER

I initially thought they were talking about fiction, which is why I cooked up a rant about how retarded they are, (especially the "ten pages, books are fluff" guys). If someone can confirm they're talking shit about fiction too I'll post it.